Abstract
During the more than three days stretching between the 2020 U.S. election day and when the presidential race was officially “called” for Democratic candidate Joe Biden, a blizzard of memes snowed down across social media. This project analyzes more than 500 of these “election week limbo” memes, created and shared during a prolonged moment of collective political anticipation and anxiety. What emerged in this sample was a spontaneous, collaborative and evolving moment of meme-based storytelling that mirrored a classic five-act storytelling structure. Meme-ers sustained this narrative for most of a week, not simply to generate new, humorous takes on an iconic photo. Rather, they collectively evolved the shared tale of a distinct political moment during an isolating pandemic, capturing the “election limbo” story memetically as moods shifted, plot twists emerged and unlikely heroes came to the forefront, creating a distinctly collaborative, narrative, and evolving meme storytelling experience.
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